Contents

Paul Falstad wrote the first version of Zsh in 1990[4] while a student at Princeton University.[5] The name zsh derives from the name of Yale professor Zhong Shao (then an Assistant Professor at Princeton University) — Paul Falstad regarded Shao's login-id, "zsh", as a good name for a shell.[6][7]

A user community website called "Oh My Zsh" collects third-party plug-ins and themes for the Z shell.[8] As of 2017, their GitHub repository has over 1000 contributors, over 200 plug-ins, and over 140 themes. It also comes with an auto-update tool that makes it easier to keep installed plug-ins and themes updated.[9]